"The President is now a king
above the law...
"...With fear for our democracy, I dissent."
~ Sonya Sotomayor, in her dissent to July 1, 2024 SCOTUS ruling on
presidential immunity
On July 1, 2024, the six members of the deeply corrupt Christofascist/Trumpist supermajority in the
Supreme Court of the United States did what millions of us feared
they would do: they presented a huge, sloppy gift-wrapped package of
immunity to #NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump to shield
him from any real accountability for his many and serious crimes
against American voters, American national security, and American
democracy. Specifically, the Court ruled that a president has
absolute immunity from criminal charges for any
"official" act committed while in office, though not
immunity from any "private" act.
Which even someone with only a rudimentary
understanding of the United States Constitution and the law can see leaves far too much leeway for interpretation of
"official" versus "private" acts. The fact
that courts are forbidden from even considering a president's
motive when determining whether an act is official or private makes the decision all the more insidious, and
outrageous.
The dissenting opinion was
written by Justice Sonya Sotomayor, who was joined by Justices
Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. From the intro to that
dissent:
Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for “bold and unhesitating action” by the President, the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.
Chief Justice John Roberts engaged in furious gaslighting regarding the seriousness of the Trump v. United States decision, saying that the dissents "strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today." Don't believe a word of it. From a July 1 opinion piece in Slate.com by Mark Joseph Stern:
The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority fundamentally altered American democracy on Monday, awarding the president a sweeping and novel immunity when he weaponizes the power of his office for corrupt, violent, or treasonous purposes. This near-insurmountable shield against prosecution for crimes committed while in office upends the structure of the federal government, elevating the presidency to a king-like status high above the other branches. The immediate impact of the court’s sweeping decision will be devastating enough, allowing Donald Trump to evade accountability for the most destructive and criminal efforts he took to overturn the 2020 election. But the long-term impact is even more harrowing. It is unclear, after Monday’s decision, what constitutional checks remain to stop any president from assuming dangerous and monarchical powers that are anathema to representative government. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it in her terrified and terrifying dissent, “the President is now a king above the law.”
Trump v. United States, Monday’s decision, has no basis in the Constitution as written. Donald Trump brought the case as a delay tactic, an effort to run out the clock on his prosecution before the November election. Special counsel Jack Smith has charged the former president with a series of crimes related to his conspiracy to block the peaceful transition of power in 2020, culminating in the insurrection of Jan. 6. The indictment weaves a narrative of election subversion out of various actions the president took—many of which involved abuse of his office. In response, Trump raised a claim of “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for any “official act” he took before leaving the White House. The theory was, again, largely designed to stall the case, but also meant to shield him from the most damning charges if the case moved forward. First, the Supreme Court abetted his stalling strategy, taking up the appeal then sitting on it for months. Now it has rewarded his larger plan, too, cutting the legs from Smith’s indictment...
It's worth your time to read the entire piece, which, though billed as opinion, breaks down the facts quite well.
And if you want more specifics about why this SCOTUS decision is so frightening, read the July 2 analysis on Slate by the aforementioned Mr. Stern and Dahlia Lithwick, who were joined by Brown University professor of constitutional law and political theory Corey Brettschneider, author of the new book The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It. Here's the headline:
Can the President Send SEAL Team Six to
Assassinate His Rival? After Monday, Yes.
That headline would most likely be poo-pooed by John Roberts too,
but we already know that he's a gaslighting gasbag. Here's a
snippet from the conversation:
Lithwick: Corey, the court is drawing all these lines, like “core functions” vs. “outer perimeter,” that make it sound like they’re solving a math problem. Can you help us understand what a sea change this actually is? Because this is not just a Donald Trump story. This is a separation-of-powers story and fundamentally a structural change to democracy as we understand it.
Corey Brettschneider: You know, the court claims that it has this method of originalism that requires us to look at the text of the Constitution as it was originally understood. So you would expect, in a monumental decision like this—granting immunity to a former president’s “official acts”—that the Constitution would say something about presidential immunity. But it doesn’t. There was a disagreement at the founding about this: John Adams, for instance, defended the idea that presidents are immune from prosecution, which suits his disposition toward an aggrandized idea of presidential power. On the other side, though, there was James Wilson; at the Pennsylvania ratifying convention, he said the thing that we thought defined our Constitution until Monday—that no person, not even a president, is above the law, and the president can be prosecuted.
So it’s not like there was some universal understanding of presidential immunity at the founding. There’s no textual evidence in the Constitution. The Framers just disagreed when they talked about this issue. So the idea that this is based on originalism is false. And the main precedent they do rely on, Nixon v. Fitzgerald, gets extended way beyond what it actually said. I’d argue Roberts is saying something contrary to what that case actually said. And we have stronger cases on the other side, like U.S. v. Nixon, which held that a president facing a criminal subpoena is not above the law. They may claim to respect precedent, but they’re not doing it. They may claim to respect text, but they aren’t. And they may claim to respect history, as if the Framers sort of agreed about this, but that’s not true either.
Of course Slate was far from the only media outlet to
have a few words to say about the effects of the July 1 decision.
The web is a veritable conflagration of reports and
analyses about SCOTUS' latest attempts
to burn down America and recreate it as Trumpistan.
As President Joe Biden said, echoing the words of
Justice Sotomayor, "I dissent."
And speaking of President Biden, despite his historic respect for the rule of law, separation of powers, and the office of the presidency, lots of folks are suggesting, with various degrees of seriousness, that he should take full advantage of his current status as "king." But the reality is that SCOTUS only crowned Trump king, not Biden. As Heather Cox Richardson pointed out on her July 1, 2024 Substack:
...this extraordinary power grab does not mean President Joe Biden can do as he wishes. As legal commentator Asha Rangappa pointed out, the court gave itself the power to determine which actions can be prosecuted and which cannot by making itself the final arbiter of what is “official” and what is not. Thus any action a president takes is subject to review by the Supreme Court, and it is reasonable to assume that this particular court would not give a Democrat the same leeway it would give Trump.
So, yeah... don't believe John Roberts. The SCOTUS
decision on presidential immunity is very big deal, and it's
truly awful, and the only way we can possibly delay, if not stop,
a total fascist takeover of America is for all eligible and registered voters who still
believe in American democracy and the rule of law to Vote Blue in
November. Or as President Biden reminded us, “Now the American
people will have to do what the court should have been willing to
do and would not: Americans will have to render a judgment about
Donald Trump’s behavior."
For now, as a Facebook friend of mine, journalist and author David
Theis, wrote, "This will be my
first 4th of July in mourning."
Let's take a few days to mourn, and then let's double down on our
efforts to keep Trump out of the Oval Office forever.
Before you leave...
This has been, through what is no apparent fault of her own
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